NATASHA OUT-LOCKHARTS LOCKHART WHILE KAY DOES A MORAL BACKFLIP

This is your guest blogger Richard Egan filling in for my colleague Dr David Van Gend.

At 6pm last Thursday, 14 September Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja tabled an exposure draft of the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) and Related Research Amendment Bill 2006. The Bill is co-sponsored by Senator Ruth Webber.

According to Senator Stott-Despoja’s tabling speech the Bill is “for information and committee use”. That is to say, it is not intended to be voted upon. This is just as well as, besides the core ethical problems with this Bill, it is poorly drafted, and if passed in its present form would simply be unviable. More on this below.

The title of the Bill focuses on “somatic cell nuclear transfer”. The first object of the Bill (Section 3) is to “provide for the continuing national development of responsible medical research through the use of stem cells including innovative techniques such as somatic cell nuclear transfer”. Of course, somatic cell nuclear transfer is just a description of one method of cloning – the method used to produce our late and lamented woolly friend Dolly. It has not yet been used to produce a human embryo clone let alone one that has developed to the stage at which embryonic stem cells can be harvested.

The only claim still standing – after the six month hoax perpetrated by Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk who persuaded the whole world, including the Lockhart Committee was exposed -- to actually have produced a human embryo clone is from the Newcastle team. This team didn’t use somatic cell nuclear transfer. Using 36 ova procured from women undergoing IVF they managed only to produce a single blastocyst by enucleating an ovum within one hour of collecting it from the woman and fusing it with an embryonic stem cell. This method seems to have been chosen because the nucleus of an undifferentiated embryonic stem cell would need less reprogramming by the ovum then a somatic or body cell. However, there doesn’t seem to be any possible practical application of this technique. Even if the blastocyst made this way had survived long enough for stem cells to be extracted all that would have been achieved would be cloning an embryo you had already killed for its stem cells in order to get more stem cells with the same DNA somewhat scrambled by the cloning process. What’s the point?

The Newcastle team has never had this research published in a peer review journal. Since then they have lost their lead researcher Dr Miodrag Stojkovic to the Prince Felipe Research Centre in Valencia.

As Gretchen Vogel noted in her review article Cell biology: picking up the pieces after Hwang would be human cloners “face two substantial hurdles: a limited supply of human oocytes and a lack of data on how to use them most efficiently”.

Natasha’s Bill maintains the current ban on giving any “valuable consideration” in return for human eggs. “Valuable consideration” is defined in relation to the supply of a human egg to include “any inducement, discount or priority in the provision of a service to the person”.

The Newcastle team were getting eggs by asking women undergoing IVF to hand over two of their eggs if they produce 12 or more in one treatment cycle. By this means they only netted only 66 eggs for research in 7 months. Not enough it seems to make any further advances in human cloning! They succeeded in getting the Human Fertility and Embryo Authority to issue a license permitting them to offer discounted IVF to women in order to up egg procurement rate. The Human Fertility and Embryo Authority is now considering a general change to the rules to allow payment for eggs.

Californian would-be cloner Renee Reijo Pera is also calling for a change to the rules to allow payment to women for their eggs. In the United States it is common practice to pay women to have their eggs harvested for use in creating IVF embryos for infertile women. The going rate is as high as $50,000. However, under Proposition 71, by which Californians voted $3 billion for stem cell research including cloning, payment to women for eggs for cloning is prohibited.

Some commentators have suggested that eggs which fail to fertilise during IVF procedures could be used. However, these have proved ineffective in cloning research. Good, fresh eggs are needed!

But it seems that women everywhere in the world are sensibly reluctant to undergo the risks of ovarian hyperstimulation, including death, simply to accommodate the demands of the would-be cloners.

As Dr Van Gend suggested in his most recent blog the only alternative to inviting women to risk death from ovarian hyperstimulation in order to keep the would-be cloners supplied with enough eggs to play with is to use animal eggs instead.

And it is here that Natasha out-Lockharts the Lockhart Review itself.

Recommendation 6 of the Review was that “Development of a human–animal hybrid or chimeric embryo should continue to be prohibited, except as indicated in Recommendation 17” Recommendation 17 was that “Certain interspecies fertilisation and development up to, but not including, the first cell division should be permitted for testing gamete viability to assist ART training and practice.” Additionally, (and in contradiction to Recommendation 6) Recommendation 24 was that “In order to reduce the need for human oocytes, transfer of human somatic cell nuclei into animal oocytes should be allowed, under licence, for the creation and use of human embryo clones for research, training and clinical application, including the production of human embryonic stem cells”.
The existing legislation prohibits the creating of either a chimeric embryo or a hybrid embryo. A chimeric embryo is defined as a human embryo into which a cell, or any component part of a cell, of an animal has been introduced. A hybrid embryo is defined as (a) an embryo created by the fertilisation of a human egg by animal sperm; or (b) an embryo created by the fertilisation of an animal egg by human sperm; or (c) a human egg into which the nucleus of an animal cell has been introduced; or (d) an animal egg into which the nucleus of a human cell has been introduced.
Lockhart explicitly recommended retaining a complete prohibition on creation of chimeric embryo. Natasha’s Bill allows the creation of chimeric embryos.
Lockhart only recommended allowing creating of hybrids by fertilisation [methods (a) and (b) above] up to the first cell division. Natasha’s Bill would allow a scientist to fertilise a human egg with animal sperm (or vice versa) and let the resulting embryo grow for 14 days before it was destroyed.
Lockhart did recommend allowing the creating of hybrid embryos by method (d) above. Natasha has adopted this recommendation despite the Chief Scientist Jim Peacock’s advice that such hybrids would be scientifically useless.
Lockhart did not recommend lifting the prohibition on creating hybrids by method (c), that is putting the nucleus of an animal cell into a human egg. Natasha is happy for scientists to try this one too.
I mentioned earlier that Natasha’s Bill was – like all attempts at human cloning to date –unviable. Her new Division 2 of Part 2 of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act contains a list of things that are prohibited unless permitted by a license issued by the NHMRC Licensing Committee. This list includes: creating a human embryo clone; creating a human embryo other than by fertilisation; creating a human embryo with mitochondrial DNA from more than 2 persons; creating a human embryo with precursor cells taken from a human embryo or a human fetus (yes, this means fertilising the eggs taken from an aborted baby girl) and creating a chimeric or hybrid embryo.
However, the Bill makes no provision for the NHMRC Licensing Committee to issue licenses for creating any of these embryos. Rather the Bill merely provides for licenses to be issued for the use of such embryos. This is just one of the serious drafting flaws in the Bill.
In a section dealing with consent Natasha’s Bill (Section 17 of Schedule 2) requires consent from either (but not both) the egg donor or the somatic cell donor before a licensed embryo, for example, a human embryo clone, is used.
Oh well. Senator Stott-Despoja said her Bill was just for “information and Committee use.” This is just a dress rehearsal for the real show which is Senator Backflip Patterson’s Bill.
You remember!. The Senator who said in 2002 “I believe strongly that it is wrong to create human embryos solely for research. It is not morally permissible to develop an embryo with the intent of truncating it at an early stage for the benefit of another human being. However, utilising embryos that are excess to a couple's needs after a successful implantation is a very different matter. I believe it is disingenuous to suggest that approving this research will open the door to further killing of living human beings when the Prohibition of Human Cloning Bill 2002 bans the creation of a human embryo for a purpose other than achieving a pregnancy.”

Her only defence so far for her extraordinary moral backflip in now sponsoring a bill which will permit what she so recently told us so firmly was “wrong” and “not morally permissible” and will open the door to further killing of living human beings that she so self-righteously assured us was firmly shut has been that she is entitled to change her mind.

The latest word is that Senator Patterson may have her Bill ready by the end if this week – September 22. (I’ll believe it when I see it!) That will leave the people of Australia just twelve days to let the Senate Community Affairs Committee know by their October 4 deadline for submissions that unlike Senator Patterson we don’t believe that fundamental moral principles can change – let alone change in four years. It is still as wrong today as it was in 2002 to “create human embryos solely for research” and to “develop an embryo with the intent of truncating it at an early stage for the benefit of another human being”.